Enforcing "Copyright" on CS programs more

Hi SP,

Thanks for the feedback---this sounds like a very interesting idea!

You're correct in saying that the programs on the site are not technically "copyrighted" in the sense that the code can't be reproduced by others, and user's shouldn't be claiming this since it's misleading. All CS programs on the site are available under the MIT License, which in simple terms allows anyone to use the code as they like, as long as they share the code with the same license. 

On our platform, we also require users to make copies of programs using the spin-off feature, since this gives credit to the original author and makes it easier to track who created what. All projects that are not copied using the spin-off feature can be flagged for plagiarism so we can remove them.

Thanks again for sharing! Please let me know if you have any other suggestions or questions! 

When flagging projects that say "copyright", I'm assuming I should put it under "Off-topic" or "abuse", right?

Also, I'm not quite sure I understand why you can't implement am auto-flag for this, it has absolutely nothing to do with plagarism. I'm sure many users haven't read through the MIT Lisence, so I feel implementing some sort of auto flag can help give them a warning before hiding their program.

Thanks!
SP

It doesn't really matter what category you flag the project as, as long as you use the flag description box to explain why you flagged it.

Ah, I think I originally misunderstood what you were saying about auto-flagging. In this case, it would probably be possible and I've forwarded this request to the team for further consideration. That being said, I haven't seen a ton of programs that contain these kinds of comments, so I don't think our engineering team is likely to prioritize a change like this at the moment. In the meantime, you're welcome to continue flagging these projects so we can the creators.

Thanks for your help!

I'm sorry, can you repeat that with proper grammar?

Auto-flagging any program with the word "copyright" in it would be a bad decisions; say, for instance, your program has a line in it where a character states, "I copyrighted it, but ... " In that case, you would be unfairly flagged merely for a single word in an entire game/simulation/graphic. Plus, you might also say in the comments in-code, 'This is not copyrighted.' Again, unjustly flagged.

Fortunately, our computers aren't able to differentiate things with the intelligence of humans. You could flag it based off of some text (i.e. COPYRIGHT [USER] [YEAR]), but that could turn up problems as well.

Further, how exactly should flagging a program warn its creator? As far as I'm concerned, I can't read flags on any of MY programs. Why not state in the comments, "Hey, man, copyrighting a program isn't legal." In that case, you could warn said user of their infringement.

Still, thanks for this whole copyright warning! I'll have to remove the fake copyright text on some programs of mine, I guess ... 

Hi all,

I just wanted to clarify a few things on this:

Including just ©YourName in your program is OK, since all code in KA programs is available through the MIT License, which does include a copyright. However, if you're going to do this, it would be best to mention something about that license next to the copyright text, otherwise this could be misleading. Regardless, including the copyright statement also just really isn't necessary because the a similar statement is included at the bottom of the page for all KA programs. 

On the other hand, saying that nobody is allowed to copy, reproduce, or distribute your program is not okay, because that would not be adhering to the MIT License through which your code has been made available. If you see someone doing this, you're welcome to flag the project so we can contact the creator.

I hope this helps clarify some of the confusion!

What about situations where someone copies some other piece of open source code that includes a copyright notice with it from another platform? I assume the original author's copyright claim and license is the one that applies.